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<title>In Dreaming by blood bag boogie (evil_bunny_king)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26622016">In Dreaming</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/blood%20bag%20boogie'>blood bag boogie (evil_bunny_king)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Dancing and the Dreaming [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Both is good, Epistolary, F/F, F/M, Love Letters, we love both Nat and Nate in this house, why not both????</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:28:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>516</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26622016</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/blood%20bag%20boogie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>(Love letters, from Natalie and Nate to their detectives)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Detective/Natalie "Nat" Sewell, Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Dancing and the Dreaming [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053032</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>A series of familiar letters</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Poet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>I never ask much of you, my dear, but tonight, I have a selfish request. As you lay down upon your bedsheets tonight, I would like you to close your eyes. Imagine the bed creaking under my weight, my heart beating faster as I hold you closer, my fingers -slow and intent- running through your hair. I want you to almost hear my voice reading to you our favourite poems as you fall asleep.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But above all, I want you to remember: I love you, always.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yours truly, N</em>
</p><p>-</p><p>His letter has been smoothed over many times, almost smudging where the detective’s fingertips have traced the indentations beneath the ink, her smile pressed against her knuckles, the curve of her hand.</p><p>And the letter has settled in many different places, in the weeks since he’d gifted it to her.</p><p>It started in the book she’d taken home from his library: an anthology of Andrew Marvell’s poetry (he’d folded it between the pages of ‘<em>to his coy mistress</em>’ with a sprig of dried lavender and she’d laughed and blushed and muttered unsavoury, hopelessly affectionate things about him when she’d found it, pressing apart the little dried flowers with her fingers)</p><p>Currently it sits in a book of translated Rilke. She hears his voice when she reads from it, curled into her bed in the close dark of the evening: the book against her knees, the letter in her lap, eyes and lips tracing the words:</p><p>
  <em>You’re withdrawing from me, hour.</em><br/>
<em>The beating of your wings leaves me bruised.</em><br/>
<em>Alone: what shall I do with my mouth?</em><br/>
<em>my night? my day?</em>
</p><p>- <em>The Poet</em> - Rilke (in translation, E. Snow)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Letter sent by anon on tumblr. Collaboration.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Peppermint</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Peppermint candies in the dead of winter. Afternoon tea spent in the afternoon garden of spring. Gelato and beaches enjoyed on a hot summer’s day. Hot chocolate at the start of autumn. Comforts abound in seasonal delights.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yet all of my favorite things pale compared to the delight I find in you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>So let me find comfort, the comfort of you.</em>
</p><p>-</p><p>Nat murmurs the words in your ear. Her voice is as warm and thick as honey as she draws you back against her, her hands sliding around your waist to your hip, your stomach, long fingers and warm, firm palms. She presses you close, in promise. You feel her smile and you're molten limbed, her name in your mouth.</p><p>You thread your fingers through hers and hold her tighter than you’ll admit aloud. <em>You are that for me, </em>you don’t quite say, at least not in words. <em>I want you here, with me. I want </em>you<em>, always.</em></p><p>“Whatever I can give you,” is what you manage, “it’s yours.”</p><p>She turns her head into your brow and breathes you in, her inhale a shiver that slips down your spine, that undoes the rigid lines of you - the ones that hold you upright, that hold you together.</p><p>She presses a kiss gently, deliberately, against your temple and it's like subsiding, this tenderness.</p><p>“You've already given me it,” she says, and there is nothing- nothing more that you can say to that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Letter sent by anon on tumblr. Collaboration.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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